Barbarian Assault/Advanced strategies

This is a safe activity in an instanced area. If you die here, you will not lose any of your items, including those stored inside an Item Retrieval Service (deathbank). However, any items you drop manually on the ground will be lost. Warning: It is still dangerous for Hardcore group iron players.

This page summaries some advanced strategies for the Barbarian Assault minigame. The article assumes very good knowledge of the minigame; visit gameplay and strategies to understand mechanics referenced throughout before attempting.

Players seeking only to complete a diary task or obtain a fighter torso should note that it is completely possible to do so without using the techniques listed.

The most common scroll order for experienced players is Attacker-Attacker-Healer-Collector-Defender. If solo attacking, the second attacker is replaced with a healer. The team leader should never be a healer or defender, as the scroll takes up necessary inventory space. The defender also frequently repairs the runner trap, which may briefly delay penance creatures from spawning or prevent the call from changing by accident.

The order of players on the team interface determines their spawn position at the start of each wave. Placing the healer and defender in 3rd and 5th spawns them closest to their dispensers. On wave 10 spawn positions are different; the 5th player spawns far away from the dispensers. This should be the defender and not the healer, as it's more important for the healer to stock food quickly.

When the team leader is stalled (e.g. by an animation), the following aspects of the game are influenced:

Because stalling influences so many aspects of the game, it is quite difficult to do correctly. For example, if you use a cooking cape to multiply eggs when all penance are almost dead, this could extend the game considerably after they all die, or when you multiply eggs when not all reserve healers have spawned yet, the spawn is delayed, also slowing down the wave.

Commonly used stalls are:

Most interactions in Barbarian Assault revolves around a 10 tick cycle, which is also tied to the team leader. The wave end check is no exception. Every 10 ticks (6 seconds), the game checks if all penance monsters are dead. If they are, the wave ends and players are brought back up into the wave room. This means that if the penance monsters die between each 10 tick interval, players must wait until the next wave end check before the wave completes. This check itself can also be stalled by the team leader using stall methods above, known as 'force end'.

For example, if the last penance monster is about to die 61.8 (tick 103) seconds into the wave, players must wait an additional 4.2 seconds (7 ticks) before the next wave end check happens at 66 (tick 110). Team leader can click on a stall at 59.4 (tick 99), the stall occurs on the next tick at 60.0 (tick 100), and that will cause the wave end check to delay. If a shrink-me-quick is used, the wave end check delays from 60.0 (tick 100) to 61.8 (tick 103), where it would check if all penance monsters are dead, find that it's true and immediately end the wave. Note that once a wave end check is delayed, it delays all subsequent checks by the same amount. In the example, the wave end check will now happen at 61.8 (tick 103), 67.8 (tick 113) and so on.

If any player in the team that isn't the team leader is stalled for 5 ticks after the wave ends, such as shooting an egg from the egg hopper or an untimely death, they have a chance of staying in the wave whilst all other players spawn in the wave room upstairs. This causes a mismatch, where the game treats the player as having left the team, but the player who was stalled is still in a null team. The team leader must right click - clear all players on the scroll, then re-invite each member again, before proceeding to the next wave.

Fighters and rangers spawn every 6 seconds, unless the maximum simultaneous amount of fighters or rangers has been reached (that is, the most that can be in the arena at any given time; refer to the table above). After this maximum has been reached, a creature will only be spawned to replace a creature that is killed. This goes on until there are no more creatures available to spawn.

The maximum simultaneous amount and total amount of fighters and rangers is counted separately. In order to kill the creatures as fast as possible (as opposed to as safely as possible), combat stats over 90 are recommended for solo play. As fighters have a 2.4-second death animation and rangers have a 1.2-second death animation, fighters respawn more slowly; based on these two facts, the optimal creature killing order for each wave is as follows, assuming damage is no concern:

With the introduction of more powerful gear over time, modern meta often involve the scroller to either solo or take on more monsters whilst the second attack leaves early. Multi-hitting weapons such as the venator bow and the Dinh's bulwark are vital to maximise damage, so that penance fighters and rangers die consistently for reserves to spawn.

A goading potion can also be used to easily gain aggression of the penance fighters and rangers. This helps to prevent the monsters from roaming east immediately after spawning.

Solo attackers should bring in additional switches to maximise the area of effect damage from Dinh's bulwark special attack, which has a strength buff based on the player's defensive stats. Therefore, Torva armour, Bandos armour or Justiciar armour can increase damage and survivability. Since attacker role has a minimum guaranteed hit based on attacker level, the dragon claws special attack guarantees minimum 20 damage for a level 5 attacker, making it useful for ensuring a ranger or fighter dies before the next spawn cycle. The damage can be further enhanced by bringing an amulet of rancour or amulet of torture, ferocious gloves or barrow gloves and infernal cape or fire cape.

A dark bow is commonly used as a basic last attack before the call changes. This takes advantage of the time spent waiting for the next call by using a weapon with a slow attack speed but high damage.

Your attack priority should be first to tag newly spawned rangers and fighters to gain aggression (unless using a goading potion) with 3rd age bow or magic shortbow, then attack monsters in a 3x3 stack with a venator bow. If the call is accurate style, use the Dinh's special attack. If monsters are lined up in a 1x3 stack and the call is controlled, aggressive or defensive, you can use the crystal halberd special attack or scythe of Vitur instead, although the halberd and scythe has mostly been abandoned in modern setups. It's important to avoid using venator bow on isolated targets due to the slower attack speed.

As a scroller, it's highly beneficial to understand the wave mechanics in detail, specifically regarding the 10-ticks cycle (6 seconds). This cycle dictates most mechanics in barbarian assault, including as mentioned previously the fighter and ranger spawning. Call change happens after 50 ticks (30 seconds). Solo attacker needs to prioritise tagging new spawns at the earliest tick possible, so the mastery of timing the attack speed of various weapons to the 10-tick cycle separates beginner to advanced attacker players.

As an example, shortbows has an attack speed of 3 ticks on rapid style. At the start of the 10-tick cycle, after shooting 3 times, 9 ticks would have passed. If you choose to shoot again, your weapon will be on cooldown when the next monster spawns. Advanced attackers would burn the final tick by stopping the attack manually for 1 tick.

Depending on the team's strategy, adjust the type of items for stalling as required. Refer to the stalling section above for more details.

When a wave ends, the scroller spawns first into the next room with an evenly distributed chance to spawn on any of the 61 tiles available. Normally, the wave end report interface would pop up and delay all players in the room. However, as the scroller, if you're able to spawn or move towards the ladder before the interface appears, you can quick-start down the ladder to immediately move onto the next wave. The chance of spawning next to the ladder is or 6.6%. The chance can be increased by using adamant seeds to forcibly path 1 tile east whilst your character is delayed by the interface. Since the ladder is at the south-eastern corner of the room, using the adamant seed against the wall at the eastern-most section will push you one tile west instead, lining you up to the ladder. Further methods to increase the likelihood include pre-moving and using items such as knife and branch.

When no bait is in range, penance runners will walk 5 tiles in any direction except north, with a strong preference to the south. This is known as running. When any bait (good or bad) is within range (4 tiles for defender level 1, 5 tiles for level 2-5) after a runner stops running, it will start a search for the 'best' bait to eat.

Runners target by searching adjacent 8x8 zones of tiles from the one it is in. These zones are fixed and will always be the same. The runner searches the zones in columns starting in the north-east, ending in the south-west. The accompanying image shows an example of these zones and the order a runner will search them. When a zone is found with bait, the runner will then look to see if there is more than one bait in the zone. If there is, it will choose the most recently dropped bait as its target. Because of the direction they search, runners prefer bait to the east and north of them. This means runners will always eat bait at the trap instead of other dropped bait in the strategy.

The following table lists the possible actions of a runner, and how food influences it:

Defenders who aren't confident that the collector knows how to properly prepare to spam (loading them all at once instead of one-by-one) can give a singular omega egg at a time to the collector, and hold onto the remaining ones until (if) another is needed.

Multi-killing is a strategy for killing multiple runners on a single trap charge. This means less time is spent repairing, fewer logs may be needed for the wave, and the chance of runners eating each other's bait (causing them to run away) is significantly lower.

A multi-kill (or multi) happens when multiple runners reach the trap food at the exact moment that they want to eat it.

All advanced Defender strategies have multi-killing as a basis. For more advanced multi killing strategies than the ones listed here, such as soft crash, pickup and pickup soft crash, see the user guides.

The easiest way to multi-kill is known as a slow multi-kill. This is a great strategy to learn first.

Instead of doing a tick-perfect action yourself, a slow multi relies on a runner eating a food to initiate the multi. Other runners that also wanted that food will panic ("crash"), and once their panic is over they eat the remaining food at the same time.

It requires the defender to drop bait by the trap and stand on top of it. When a player is standing on top of it, runners can not pass through the player to eat the bait, and thus get stuck. For this type of multi-kill, the runner trap must be fully repaired with 2 charges to work.

Once the runners have gathered around the bait, the defender should step one tile to the south and stand there. This will first let one runner eat at the trap and die, followed by the rest of the stack shortly after. Some runners in the stack may move away from the trap during the multi-kill and thus not die, but they can be dealt with by stepping back on the bait and setting up for another multi-kill (the runners will target the remaining bait in the pile).

Other players running through the defender will cause the runners to pass through the defender. To continue blocking runners, the defender should step off of the bait and then step back on, so the runners can no longer pass through. Be careful not to accidentally pick up food.

It is possible to kill multiple runners with a single trap charge instead of the two required for the basic multi-killing strategy. This allows the defender to use even fewer logs per wave, and eliminates the potential for a runner to escape the multi-kill.

For normal multi-kill, the defender must step away from the bait on the trap on a specific tick in the runner's bait targeting cycle. The timing for this is every 6 seconds from the beginning of the wave, which is the same timing as penance spawning, or every other hit from poison to a penance healer poisoned on time. Players on RuneLite will have the barbarian assault plugin installed by default, which indicates the wave time underneath the role call information. You can use the ingame wave timer to determine when to step off at 6 seconds intervals, beginning at 30 -> 24 -> 18 -> 12 -> 6.

It is also possible to time the multi-kill based on the location of the final penance runner after watching the direction it moves first after spawning.

Here is the timing to move off of the bait for each direction of the final runner:

• South: Move after the penance runner passes the eastern edge of the egg launcher platform.
• West: Move after the penance runner bumps into the northern edge of the egg launcher platform.
• East: Move as the penance runner passes the small spike north of the trap.

Healer role often make use of healer codes to ensure effective usage of food, commonly starting from wave 4. The more advanced methods requires the healer to take additional good food at the beginning of the wave before left-click stock all. This is known as overstocking, abbreviated to OS. This means the defender must call as early as possible when the wave starts, before the healer reaches the healer item machine. To do so, defender can right click on their defender horn prior to a wave ending. The context menu for the horn stays open even as your character is transported to the next wave room and into the next wave. Once you spawn to the next wave, you can immediately call the correct food for the healer.

When done correctly, the Defender is much faster on later waves than the Healer, so advanced strategies often rely on the defender to help the healer role by making the Penance healers walk favourably. The collector and attackers may also help with this in some cases.

In this section "healer" refers to the Penance Healer monster, and "healing player" to the player with the healer role.

This section mostly applies to waves 5+. On early waves just try to be fast.

After a healer spawns, it tries to target a player to poison them. After poisoning a player, a healer tries to target a runner, and after that a player, and so on.

If a healer cannot find a runner when it searches one, it will randomly roam around the map, which is usually inefficient.

When a healer targets a player but cannot reach them, it will slowly follow them wherever they go. This can be bad when the healer is lured away from the healing player. This can be good when used to make healers stand still in certain places.

Three basic steps are always beneficial:

The first healer that spawns should target the healing player, not the defender. Hide behind the east edge of the cannon hill until the first healer targets the healing player, then place the trap food.

Before grabbing logs, prevent newly spawned healers from following you by quickly stepping east to make them poison you before running west.

After placing enough food to kill the last runners and repairing the trap, hide behind the corner east of the trap to make healers get stuck on the wall. At some point, run south and on the cannon hill while they keep following you, and shoot the cannon.

To poison a Penance Healer, simply use the food called by the defender (worms, meat or tofu) on it. This will deal 4 damage, every time, as well as inflict poison, which will damage the Penance Healer over time. Every 30 seconds, the correct food changes, and the defender should call it out again; if no food is displayed in the assault interface, ask the defender to call.

The basic strategy is to always make sure all Penance Healers are poisoned at least once. Penance Healers that are not poisoned always have priority; after that, the Penance Healers with the lowest poison damage ticking down should be poisoned again. Poison damage from each food will be as follows:

Unlike traditional poison damage, poison on the Penance Healers hits every five game ticks. The following table shows how many food are needed for a single Penance Healer on each wave, assuming food is only directly used once, and all other damage from latent poison.

The healer often has to re-stock at the healer item machine multiple times during a wave. If necessary, drop food you have too much of, and/or right click the machine for specific food.

The healer receives a relatively small amount of base points in an entire round, equal to 305 points. However, the healer rarely loses points, as it takes four incorrect food applications to receive a 2-point penalty for the healers, (and a 1-point penalty for the other 3 roles). On the other hand, the healer receives 2 points for every 18 hitpoints healed on other players (and 1 point is given to the other roles). Thus, more points can be gained if teammates are healed more often.

To increase points, when the wave is almost over, players can try to heal all teammates to full for extra points. If there are two healers, healing each other gives more points than drinking from the pool. Given that up to 3 wrong food can be used without getting a penalty, the healer can try to guess the food if the defender is slow at calling. Try not to use more than 3 wrong food on waves 1-9.

Wave 10 provides a fixed reward of 80 points in the player's role and 5 points in the other 3 roles, and there are no bonuses for healing nor penalties for incorrect food.

Note: in these sections, "healer" refers to the monster.

If everybody on the team is good at playing their role, the healer role is slowest on later waves. Therefore, quickly killing healers is very important. As always, do not run through the defender if they stand near their trap. Doing so will mess up their multi-kill and severely slow down the wave.

Quickly killing healers requires finding a balance between using a lot of food on them and having enough food to poison the healers that will spawn later. By spam-using the correct food on a healer, you can kill it much quicker, but you also run out of food.

Every wave has a number of healers (1 to 6) to initially spawn, and a number of healers (0 to 3) that only spawns after the first healers die, known as reserves. See wave information for details.

Advanced strategies focus on quickly getting the reserves to spawn, and then quickly killing them.

There are two general ways to do so:

1. If there are x reserves, use more food on x healers and then quickly kill all reserves when they come out.
2. If there are x reserves, use more food on x-1 healers, then poison the reserves that spawn, and for the last reserve spam-kill it with an inventory full of the correct food, while the rest of the team shoots eggs.

Which strategy to use depends on the specific wave and the cooperation of the other teammates. Wave-specific strategies are described in the next section.

More specific strategies as found in the user guides often describe how much food to use on which healer, written down in a system known as "healer codes". For example, 1-5-1-1 means "use 1 food on the first healer, 5 on the second, 1 on the third and 1 on the fourth", which is a good strategy for the first part of any wave.

These waves don't have any reserves, and the healer role is usually the fastest here. Poison all penance healers, and use some extra food to kill them more quickly.

These waves have a single reserve, which you want to quickly get out. Spam food on the first or second healer to kill it quickly, while also poisoning all other healers. After first call change the reserve should be out, and you can use the newly called food to kill it quicker.

From wave 6 onward all healers need to be re-poisoned to die. Also, from wave 6 onward you may want to re-stock just before the third call, such that you have more food to spam. If doing this, try to fully empty your inventory before re-stocking. Wave 6 has two reserves and wave 7 has three. For both waves, a good strategy is to quickly spawn two reserves, and then spam food on the reserves that spawn. Don't forget to timely re-poison slowly dying healers.

Waves 8 and 9 start off with more than 4 healers, which means the last few spawn after the first call change. Both waves have two reserves. The strategy used here highly depends on the other teammates: if they need much healing, or if they pull the healers west, or if they don't shoot many eggs with the egg launcher, you will have to use a less optimal strategy. In general, quickly kill either one or two healers while slowly killing the others, and then quickly kill the reserves as they spawn.

In wave 10, the healers spawn slightly more west, so it is more difficult not to make them wander away. Wave 10 has three reserves. If you want to count on help from the cannon to kill the reserves, you will need a good team that knows how to get the healers to the cannon. Try to quickly kill 2 or 3 healers while slowly killing the others, and then quickly kill the reserves. Then, try to heal up your teammates before the queen spawns.